George Monbiot cuts through Shell Oil's PR spin

Here’s a great video interview with Guardian columnist George Monbiot and Jeroen van der Veer, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. The spin and bafflegab is almost too painful to watch. We need more reporters like Monbiot that push hard and ask the right questions.

Comments

The CEO looked pretty stressed. I don’t think he’ll be doing any more Monbiot meetings for a while.

One interesting stat that came out of that was where the CEO claimed that the Nigerian gov. was getting 90% of the oil money. If true that means Shell is making money after getting only 10% of the oil money. $10. or less a barrel and they can still make it work?

Face it. Shell could care less about how it pollutes Canada’s air or Nigeria’s air. It is only interested in the bottom line of it’s profit statement. But they are no worse than other careless companies who like to exploit resources and people where they mine their liquid gold.

I would like to know how they plan to clean up the properties in Alberta where all the polluted water is stored in tailing ponds? How will they clean up those environmental disasters? Or, like Nigeria, will they just ignore the problem.

I was amazed by the forbearance of Jorven van der Veer for not drop kicking that rude, arrogant s.o.b. out the door. After being granted the courtesy of an interview by someone who probably had useful things to do, Monbiot came on like a pedantic headmaster interogating a naughty schoolboy. The Guardian is supposed to be more or less respectable but, this interview suggests that it has fallen into the “new British” school of tabloid journalism. Ugh.

We need people like Monbiot who has made it his duty to hold these people to account (I would call that something useful to do) and to ask those difficult questions that they don’t want to talk about but we need to be answered. If they don’t realise exactly what they’re letting themselves in for, then they should have done their homework!

I’m ambivalent about Monbiot, I don’t always like his approach, but I’m pretty certain that people of his ilk will make the world a little better than it might otherwise have been.

It’s quite obvious why certain people don’t like him. But that’s exactly why we need more like Monbiot.

Throwing an honoured (and honourable) scientist like Bellamy into the ring with an ignorant, mean spirited turd like Monbiot is reminiscent of the fine old sport of bear baiting.

To compound the boorishness, some of the more malevolent true believers are now saying that, since he displays independent thought, he must be senile. The same crap has been thrown at Revelle and Seitz. At least, Bellamy is still alive and able to defend himself.

Bellamy [a botanist] has abused his position as a well known scientist to push an anti-science agenda and undermine climate science and the IPCC.

Bellamy’s arguments were shredded and revealed for what they really were - complete tosh. He was completely outclassed and overwhelmed by Monbiot’s grasp of the science. All Bellamy could do was waffle.

See my previous comment for a link to the video.

If you don’t believe the video or accept what Monbiot says, look at the science. Bellamy was clearly not speaking the truth, why did he take the word of a convicted fraudster and former architect over world class scientists? I find that inexplicable, if he has any integrity.

This is only a small selection, a proper search will turn up much more.

FYI: Revelle was a respected scientist, who while he was dying was apparently bullied into co-authoring the Cosmos article by the unspeakable and deceitful Singer, who also was involved heavily in the Tobacco industry campaign of disinformation.

Whereas, after a successful career in physics and becoming President of the National Academies of Sciences, Seitz involved himself with the deceitful tactics used by the tobacco industry and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine’s Petition Project.

If as you claim, an ‘ignorant, mean spirited turd like Monbiot’ (your words), can demolish Bellamy with facts and science, what does that imply about Bellamy? As for the despicable Seitz and Singer, whose records speak more eloquently of their characters and actions than any ad hominem.

The fact that you choose the debunked views of a non-expert over world-class expert specialist opinions also says a great deal about your motives.

Are you suggesting that muck raking media attack dog Monbiot is a “world-class expert specialist”? I hope that I’m misinterpreting your intent but, from a true believer, anything is possible.

Deceitful tactics re the Oregon Petition? As one of the original signatories of the petition, I find that comment more than a little offensive.

Your reference to Seitz as “despicable” is pretty damned despicable and typical of the more vicious sort of warmists. You should hang your head in shame.

The canard about Revelle having been “bullied” by Singer or losing his faculties when he co-authored the Cosmos article has been refuted by his family and by his personal secretary. The sorry saga of that slander of a fine scientist, which was thrown at him merely because he refused to be dogmatic, has been addressed in detail many times, most recently by Lawrence Solomon in “The Deniers”.

Unfortunately, yours is the typical warmist approach - not only on blogs such as this but in the MSM. You’d gain a lot of credibility by showing a little respect for scholars who show the slightest devience from your certitudes.

BTW, I’m not a scholar - just a working scientist quite prepared to roll in the mud with narrow minded, intolerant Gaians.

I find it incredible that any honest objective scientist who read and understood the Oregon Petition could sign it with a clear conscience. But what does that say about those who were involved in authoring it?

I can easily believe that busy scientists without specialist climate knowledge could be deceived by what was ostensibly a peer-reviewed NAS reprint and signed the petition in-good-faith would be embarrassed at being bamboozled by the deceits used. But of course, that was the intention behind the Petition Project.

In-fact, while I didn’t spot all of the deceits hidden inside, I spotted enough to know it was a heap of miserable pseudo-scientific drivel.

The OISM petition and its associated garbage document has now been sufficiently debunked to require no further debunking here. Any scientist in any discipline intelligent person can debunk the major deceits, given genuine objective scepticism, enough time and careful research. There are some basic errors and pitfalls for the unwary that are probably harder to spot. For anyone who is unaware of the background to the Oregon Petition and its Project see the bottom of this post.

What do you have to say about Seitz’ deceit formatting the Petition document to closely resemble a NAS reprint [and therefore peer-reviewed] and the letter from Seitz a former NAS President?

It is perfectly clear from the NAS press release that NAS members were confused. It seems perfectly clear that Seitz intended to deceive, and it worked. This hardly reflects well upon Seitz’ integrity, does it?

Seitz later admitted that ‘it was stupid’ for the Oregon activists to copy the academy’s format..,’ This was clearly also a deceit, how could an intelligent man like Seitz make such a ‘mistake’?

Carefully formatting the supporting documentation to imitate a NAS reprint was no trivial accident, it was a deliberate act and was a clear indication of a deliberate intention to deceive.

Lawrence Solomon is a denier par excellence, and his lies and deceits are NOT proof of anything, apart from the fact that anything he says is to be treated as deeply suspect and most probably untrue. Your reliance upon a pathological liar says more about you and your motives than you probably realise.

Agreeing to the interview was a dumb thing to do. He had to know how it was going to go considering who the interviewer was. I don’t feel a bit sorry for him. If he thought he could sweet talk Monbiot, then he’s really not smart enough to be Shell CEO anyway.

Monbiot wrote an article on the source of the lie “half the world’s glaciers are growing.” He traced it to a web page of Singer’s: Singer later said this was posted by an “administrative assistant”. Right.

A relative arguing with me about the reality of global warming quoted this not-fact. Because of Monbiot’s article I was able to reply, “That’s a lie and I know the name of a liar.”

This is the risk you take when you surround yourself with yes-men who applaud when you spout nonsense. It’s a routine occupational hazard for a senior corporate executive (and for their shareholders). You can easily come across as an ill-prepared nitwit when confronted with a well-informed and intelligent interviewer who has no vested interest in stroking your ego.

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